"Find them," said Brother Scieran.
They split up.
Wind and Cloud had objected. Had said – through Smoke – that splitting up was a bad idea. But Brother Scieran had argued that the Acropolis was a big place. They didn't know where they were going. They had to find the archives, had to kill Minister Vuko. Too much to do and too little time to do it.
He was right. Right, but Sword didn't like it. There was an air of desperation to his orders – a sense that their entire plan was a strange kind of prayer to the Gods: Help us, we're doing the best we can, please help us see this through.
Her hands tingled. She held a sword – just a simple cut-and-thrust blade the Small Cathedral's cache had held – in one hand, a dagger in the other. She missed her katana and her wakizashi. But they were broken. Gone. Just like so much of what they had had. So much of what she had been.
She looked at her blades.
These are good blades. Different. But good.
We endure.
She ran. Rune shimmered and peeled off in one direction. At the same moment, Wind climbed into the sky, clearly thinking to take a better look at things and determine where to go from there. She squeezed Smoke's hand before she went.
Sword, Brother Scieran, and Smoke ran together for a few more moments.
Then they turned a corner… straight into an entire battalion of soldiers.
7
Cloud had recovered enough to fling more bolts of lightning. Not at the walls this time – no point aiming for them – but at the fifty or more tanks that were floating through the air. Headed right toward them.
Cloud had always been the one who took care of things. Who nurtured and protected. He had pulled his sister out of the wreckage of their home. Had taken her from their village. Had watched over her. And she, in turn, had watched over him.
Now she was gone. For the first time that he could really remember, he was on his own.
No. Arrow.
His thoughts seemed slow. Separated by the drumbeat of his pulse that was now the only sound in his world – a sound he knew was illusory. Silence was his lot now.
He pushed away from that. Away from the memory of the pain, to the now of what must be done.
These were the men who had killed his family. Perhaps not the exact men. But they fought for the same Empire. They deserved the same fate.
He pulled down bolt after bolt. But each jag of lightning crashed over the tanks and simply washed in a purple sphere around them. Not so much as a scorch to show where they had been struck.
Arrow was firing beside him. Shooting so fast it seemed his bullets must outpace the lightning itself. Small pinpricks flared in front of some of the tanks where the bullets impacted. Sparks that held no more explosive power than a firecracker – as impervious as the bite of an ant to a giant.
But still they loosed their bolts and bullets. Still they used their Gifts. They might die – probably would – but this was their job. They weren't here that they might live, they were here so that the others would live.
The first tank fired.
Cloud reacted as fast as he could. Almost not fast enough.
Lightning fell from the sky. Not in a single strike, not even in two or three, but in a continuous sheet of electricity that fell from the clouds above and touched down on the volcanic glass below, turning them to white-hot slag.
The tank's bullet – explosive, enormous – hit the wall of electricity. It erupted in flame, a detonation so huge that the shockwave shoved Cloud back a few steps and knocked Arrow down completely.
The lightning died.
Arrow scrambled back to his feet.
He looked at Cloud, the expression clear on his face. Can you keep doing that?
Cloud shook his head. That had been luck as much as planning.
More tanks brought their guns to bear.
Another one fired.
8
Sword felt a blade digging into her ribs. A colonel was next to her, jabbing at her with his sword. "Get me a guard contingent!" he screamed.
She almost killed him. Then realized she would have to take on several hundred other soldiers. She didn't know if even she could do that.
And then she realized….
Where's Smoke?
With the question came the answer. She dropped her weapons. Beside her, Brother Scieran did the same.
A group of a dozen men peeled away from the batallion. They had black bands on their epaulettes: the mark of the police in the Imperial Army.
The "colonel" beside them waited until they were a few steps away, then began shrieking at the rest of the batallion: "What in the name of Gods' blood are you still doing here? Get to the west wall and help!"
One man – a lieutenant colonel – managed a meager, "Sir, we were told –"
The man at Sword's side cut him off. "By whom? Is he here? Did he outrank me? Do you want to DIE?" That last was enough, and in a moment the space between the buildings where the batallion had just been was empty, save only Sword, Brother Scieran, the dozen guards, and the "colonel" – Smoke.
Smoke took up a position behind the guards. "Careful. These two are crafty," he said. Then as soon as the guards had turned from him he drove one of his knives into the back of one. Cut the throat of another.
The remaining ten turned when they heard the twin gurgles, and that was all Sword needed.
She scooped up her sword and dagger. Moved in.
Brother Scieran was still picking up his own weapons – a new sickle and whip he had taken from the cache in the Small Cathedral – when the tenth man fell.
But she was still too slow. Just a bit. She had killed them all, but one of them… one of them had managed to strike. Smoke shimmered back to himself. A self with a dagger jutting from his side.
She could tell at a glance it was bad. So could Brother Scieran, for he moved quickly to the man. Whispered, "Smoke."
Smoke shook his head. "I'm fine. Go. Find what we need."
Brother Scieran looked at Sword. She nodded.
"We'll find it together," said Brother Scieran. Then he hesitated. "What about your Second Gif –"
"No." Smoke shook his head so hard that a gout of blood came out from around his knife. "No," he said again.
They limped deeper into the Acropolis.
9
Siren had lost her bearings.
It seemed like she had been floating in a haze, ever since Scholar died. Maybe before that. Maybe since the missions of the Blessed started… changing.
It was nothing she could put her finger on. Perhaps a few more children who were sent to the kennels? A few more adolescents judged too old to live when their parents were sentenced to die?
She didn't know. All she knew was that when she found her Gift, the Chancellor plucked her out of the brothels – she was merely of the House of Twos – and made her feel special. Prized.
Beautiful.
And then Teeth and Scholar came, and she recognized in them kindred souls. Men who had come from places as strange and, in their own way, loathed, as hers had been.
She loved them. Not as man to woman, but as mother to sons. She cooked for them, she cleaned their clothes – especially Teeth's clothes, such a slovenly boy – and she gloried in her family. She had been sold to the brothels when she was old enough to remember actually having a family, but those people were strangers. People who hawked her for pennies to fill their bellies for a few more hours, a few more days.
No. Scholar and Teeth. Teeth, Scholar, Siren. That was the true family, with the Chancellor and Emperor standing over as a pair of benificent gods.
And now it was broken. Just like her first family had been – only this had been a worse sundering. Not a tearing apart of a family she had hated, but the angry rending of a family she loved.
She prayed to the Gods every day that she would be able to repay that wound. Somehow.
When the shaking started, when the strange destruction began, she wondered if this mig
ht be an answer to her prayer. Either the people who had killed Scholar –
(Sword, to the Netherworlds with her, she betrayed us! She helped them kill my boy!)
– had come to them again, or the Gods had simply decreed that this land, so long living atop fire and death, should finally fall away from the Empire.
She found she didn't much care which it was.
She wished Devar were here. But he wasn't, and when she had whispered a quick question to the Chancellor – "Devar?" – all she got was the dark smile the giant man wore whenever his right hand man was away a most secret mission.
One more break in the family. One more wound unhealed.
At least Marionette wasn't here. Hopefully she was with Devar as well. That little girl was one that had never belonged, and if Siren never saw the mad child again it would be too soon.
She and Teeth ran with the Imperial Guard, with the Emperor and the Chancellor. Then there was a great shaking, a bright light that blasted her eyes like a physical blow. When she blinked her way out of blindness, she and Teeth were alone. Standing in some building she knew not where, holding to one another like children in a storm.
No, a hurricane.
She could hear the wind pummeling the building they were in, pounding it to the foundations. Could hear the rain coming in drops that must be the size of men's fists. Could picture them catching the ash in the air, creating a sooty mulch on the ground that would be disaster to fall in, death to lay too long upon.
And then, at the end of the long hall where she stood, she saw someone.
A young woman. Perhaps fifteen or sixteen Turns. Hardly more than a girl.
The girl stopped her headlong run when she saw them. She shimmered. Then she cursed and dove out the nearest door, straight into the rain.
Siren smiled.
The Gods were kind, after all.
Everything swam back into focus. The confusion that had gradually settled over her in the past months disappeared. The idea of helping the Empire, of protecting the Emperor, of following the Chancellor – all disappeared.
All she had to do was this. All she had to do was kill a girl.
"C'mon, Teeth," she muttered.
Teeth had somehow contrived to fish a piece of bread from within his tunic, even during their panicked flight. He crammed it in his mouth. Grunted.
Followed.
They ran after the girl.
Siren should have missed her. It should have been impossible to find her. The tempest was so great, the storm so wild, that one girl should have been able to hide almost anywhere.
But the Gods were kind, and the girl had run to a place where there was nowhere to hide.
The door had led into an alley between two buildings. A long passage ending with a wall at one end, and the other end blocked by Siren and Teeth.
The girl was trying a door. Shaking it in its jamb, but it was locked. She shimmered, which made Siren think of what had happened to Scholar, what this girl had done to him.
The girl ran to another door. Tried it, as well.
Locked.
Siren didn't know what this girl's Gift was. She had to have one – there was no other way she could have bested Scholar. But it didn't matter. Because when she heard Siren's Call, she would come.
They always did.
"Ready, Teeth?" she said.
He jerked his arms and legs. Saw blades erupted from every surface. His face was alive with deadly edges. But even through the inhuman appearance he now held, she could see his eyes. Dangerous. Ready.
"Bring 'er to me."
Siren opened her mouth.
And Sang.
10
Arrow was fast.
Fast enough to gun down a dozen men at inhuman range in the blink of an eye. Fast enough to put three arrows in one person's eye before his body knew it was dead.
Fast enough, sometimes, to even see a bullet move.
So when the tank fired at him, because he was watching it, he saw it happen. Saw the bullet emerge from the gun. Saw it fire with a snap of strangely beautiful electrical discharge – the magic of a Push melded with that of a Shock.
He shot it.
His own bullet hit the much larger one of the tank in mid-air, and the huge projectile exploded. For a moment Arrow hoped that the explosion might have some effect on the tank. That perhaps its own weapon might do something to it.
But no. Even if that were possible, the distances were too great. As fast as Arrow was, by the time he spotted the tank's great bullet, aimed, and fired; by the time his own bullet traveled to intercept the shot… by then the tank's bullet was halfway between them. The explosion created was far from the tank and its strange shield.
So this wasn't going to help. Not for long. It was a delaying tactic, but sooner or later more shots would come. Too many for Cloud and Sword to stop, even working together.
They would die.
The knowledge brought a strange calm. He had devoted most of his life to this cause. Not to the idea of bringing down the Empire, per se, but to the idea that he could help make things… better. And if "better" turned out to be a place without him in it….
Well, he could live with that.
Or die with it.
He shot another bullet out of the sky. It exploded.
Again, too far away. He was faster – the explosion rocked the tank, but only gently. Just a swaying motion that might as well have been an encouraging handshake for the soldiers inside: Keep it up, you're getting closer!
Another bullet fired, another one blown from the sky.
And Arrow was starting to run low on ammo.
Then he realized that Cloud had stopped calling down the lightning. He spared a quick glance for his friend.
The man was staring at him oddly.
At his rifle.
And smiling.
11
Sword and Brother Scieran couldn't move fast. Not even once they got out of the terrible, smashing rain that Cloud was dragging down from the heavens.
They were in a long hall. No one knew where. But Brother Scieran started pulling them along grimly, as though he knew where they were going.
"What are we going to do, priest?" said Smoke, evidently thinking the same thing Sword was. "Just pray our way into finding the archives?"
"Yes," answered Brother Scieran simply. "Now shut up so I can commune."
They moved down the hall. Smoke started gasping for breath.
"He can't keep –" began Sword.
"Don't." Brother Scieran didn't even look at her. "He knows what he's doing. And your saying it won't help him." He stopped, though, and looked around. They were in some kind of office area – someplace the Academics and Archivists might safeguard Army documents.
Or perhaps more?
"Could this be it?" asked Smoke.
"Doubtful," said Brother Scieran. "Though if it's here, it will be near the rear of the Acropolis. No sense hiding important things in the front, eh?"
They heard a noise. Brother Scieran's hand dropped to his whip, and it flared out with a crack. A surprised face that had been peeking into the hall from one of the rooms went red as the whip circled his neck and jerked him into view.
Brother Scieran flicked the whip, and it dropped from the man's neck. It was an Academic, with the usual dark suit and tie – though this one had a rather darker patch now spreading across the front of his pants.
"Don't even try it," snapped Brother Scieran as the man moved to run. His whip snapped at the same time, and the tip of the Academic's tie fell in tatters to the floor.
The Academic jerked quivering hands skyward. "Don't kill me. I'll tell you everything you want to know. I don't know much – I don't know anything – but I'll tell you –"
He kept babbling. Smoke eyed Brother Scieran. "You really think this chick-fowl is going to know where the archive is?"
"No," said Brother Scieran. "But he can tell us something just as good." He flicked his whip again. "Tell us, boy – and
I'm a priest, I'll know if you lie – what's the one place in the Acropolis that you're not allowed to go?"
12
The guards were taking them somewhere safe. Minister Vuko had to trust in that, his short legs moving at top speed to keep up with them as they pounded along. Safe, because there was the Captain at the head, leading half the guards in front of the Emperor and the Chancellor, while half followed close behind. The big lieutenant was with them, too, looking so grim it was a wonder his face didn't split in pieces.
Important. They're important people. They're going to go somewhere safe.
He had to trust in that. Vuko never trusted anything – not even himself, not really – but he would trust in that.
13
Rune was in a place she had never been before.
Not just physically – that happened all the time. But she had never found herself somewhere like this. A long alley between two buildings. Nothing but locked doors up and down its length. The only place that was unlocked, in fact, was the door she had just come from – and what good would it do her to go back in there?
She Looked, and Saw – trying door after door. Finding nothing helpful.
But she still had to try. She refused to sit and weep at the unfairness of it all, even though there was a part of her that wanted to do just that.
Even though, at the very edge of her Sight, she had seen the two Blessed Ones coming into the alley.
She tried two other doors. Locked as well.
And now here they were.
The one in the front, the terribly tall, thin one, snapped hands out and erupted into what looked like a field of blades.
Rune didn't spare them more than a glance. She didn't Look ahead, either. If she couldn't find an open door, she would need to save her Sight for the last moment, so she could either See what had to be done against the blades of the thin man or – more likely – replay the past so as to avoid her own death.
The Sword Chronicles: Child of the Empire Page 37